There is a strong case to be made that Europe’s native population faces irreversible decline. There’s also a strong case that America’s native population will never choose to leave its shores. But over the next several years, both those conclusions may have to be revised. As common problems afflicting the west come to diminish Americans’ sense of exceptionalism, and the extinction of millennia-old European culture looms, growing numbers in the U.S. may conclude that the only way to retain the essential character of the West is to relocate to Europe.

Europe’s well-known demographic dip is accelerating. Young people are emptying out in the Mediterranean belt, seeking jobs and opportunities in the north. But the great magnet for newcomers is Germany, where migrants from outside Europe continue to dominate. This has caused increasing political unrest. “To understand why these major movements have still occurred fairly smoothly,” however, as CityLab has observed, “you need to understand the vacuum created by Europe’s low birth rates. In no EU country was the 2015 birthrate around 2.1 births per woman, the rate generally considered necessary to maintain a static population size. Germany’s birth rate was notably low given its economic success — and many Germans are aware of this.” Not enough people in Europe want to do the work necessary to preserve Europe’s character — not yesterday’s, and not even today’s.

In some respects that is not necessarily a bad thing. For decades, many reactionary Catholics in the old world and the new have harbored the belief that the future of Europe belongs to large and devout African families, fluent in European languages and infusing the tired continent with a fresh dynamism nevertheless grounded in the faith’s ancient stability. On the other hand, Christian-Muslim relations among Africans are not always very peaceful and harmonious. And even a great influx of Christians from former European colonies would likely grate on the sensibilities of Europe’s secular and largely secularized native population. Above and beyond any chauvinistic or identitarian reasons for keeping Europe more western than westernized is the geopolitical consideration that a slower tempo of change, and a shoring-up of continuity, will contribute to greater peace and prosperity.

But Europe also faces a fundamental economic challenge to peace and prosperity. Generations of socialism and socialism-lite, combined with a wave of especially disillusioning neoliberal reaction to the challenges of Euro stabilization and the financial crisis of 2008, have made it all too difficult for working-age native Europeans to find and keep good jobs. Too many openings are in the government, too much government work hinges on patronage and paper-shuffling, and too few Europeans have been willing and able to cultivate and reproduce enterprising, entrepreneurial culture. Even under otherwise utopian cultural conditions, the jobs problem in Europe would very likely sow divisions and disillusionment.

Radical relief from these problems has always remained in the realm of utopia because of one historically remarkable phenomenon: the refusal of large numbers of Americans to seek their fortune outside their country even when it has become effectively impossible for them to live fruitfully at home. Of course, patriotism, kinship obligations and financial constraints will put serious limits on mobility. On the other hand, millions and millions of Americans trace their lineage back — not that far — to ancestors who simply picked up and went, especially from Europe and Latin America. These descendants of western migrants to the U.S. have proven remarkably unwilling to take the reverse trip when the going has gotten tough in America. Some of this is attributable to social rot: if it is hard to migrate with a poor, large family, it is impossible to do so living in a miasma of drug abuse, ill health and enervating entertainment. But Americans don’t often remember how hardscrabble and seemingly “degenerate” so many European immigrants to the U.S. appeared. From the American side, the primary obstacle to seeking better fortunes overseas is probably a raw lack of imagination — an inability to conceive of a picture of a future outside the new world.

To be sure, Europe is not helping its cause. It isn’t easy to wash up on shore from the U.S. and get a productive new life up and running. The simple lack of any tradition or shared memory of “ordinary” Americans relocating to the continent is one Europeans show very little interest in beginning to build. Given their current demographic and economic trajectory, however, that may soon begin to change. Already, Emmanuel Macron has tried welcoming American scientists and experts to France. It is not that hard to envision new generations of European leaders, looking for an advantage in a grim situation, soliciting and even incentivizing new American arrivals, perhaps somewhat in the way that Israel has encouraged Jews abroad to return.

The decisive change, however, will have to happen in America. And here, it’s also not super difficult to picture. We already see the U.S. growing more and more similar to the rest of the world, including Europe, as the downsides of globalization set in and generations of citizens lose touch with the everyday experience of freedom balanced with piety that once defined so much of American life. We can readily envision our politics growing more unexceptional — more tribal, more grinding, more stagnant, more driven by patronage. Under circumstances like that, why not take a chance in a part of the west that seems strangely to offer more of an open frontier than the dead ends of America’s steady-state urban, suburban or rural realms?

Not every American will pose that question or act on it. But for those who can match a personal interest in doing so to a more cultural or ideological interest in helping “save” Europe from another traumatizing and turbulent break with its past, returning to the old world for the good of western civilization may hold a unique and powerful appeal.

James Poulos is an editorial writer and columnist for the Southern California News Group.

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